In association with University of Arkansas Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering
“Where two distinct types of network meet, flow slows down to diffusion. This is where the network structure is most vulnerable—and interestingly where living processes occur.”
Design for a Living Planet: Settlement, Science, and the Human Future,
Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros
The Framework Plan focuses on the overlaps of city and water to create a reconciliation landscape that overcomes their traditional mutual exclusivity. The plan imagines a cityscape that cultivates a highly livable green urban environment made through “low-tech/high concept” enhancements to ordinary infrastructure investments already scheduled to service the city’s growth. Since urban watersheds are in direct competition with cities over the very ways in which the surface area should be shaped, the Framework Plan proposes a portfolio of value-added infrastructural retrofits—green streets, water treatment art parks, urban eco-farms, conservation neighborhoods, parking gardens, riparian corridor improvements, lake aerators, vegetative harvesters and floating bio-mats, and a city greenway—complementing mainstream infrastructural investments. The approach builds a representative cityscape expressive of the city’s desire for a place-based green stormwater utility that creates a public open space system.
Awards
2020 The Plan Awards: Landscape Finalist
2018 AIA Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design
2017 LafargeHolcim Acknowledgement Award
2017 Green GOOD DESIGN Award
2016 American Architecture Award
2016 ASLA Central States Merit Award
Sponsor
Arkansas Natural Resources Commission
Client
City of Conway, Arkansas